Tips for Baking with Honey

November 3, 2016

What’s the one dessert you have to bake for Thanksgiving? You know, the one you either love to create or the one that everyone asks for each year and if you don’t make it, you’re in trouble? Is it pumpkin pie, pecan pie, cranberry bread, dinner rolls, or apple bars? When pulling out your recipes for the holidays this year, think of replacing white refined sugar with honey instead. Honey is a versatile alternative and easy adaptable to most recipes.

It also confers the following benefits to your baked goods:

Promotes a golden color and crisping

Enhances flavors

Contributes to a satisfying crumb texture

Prolongs shelf-life

Helps keep baked goods moist

Here are a few easy tips to keep in mind when incorporating honey into recipes. It’s important to remember that different types of honey—depending upon their flavor—may work better in specific recipes. For example, a lighter honey like Bee America Orange Blossom Honey is typically sweeter and may have more of a floral or citrus overtone. These types of honeys work better in fruit-flavored, quick breads or rolls. Darker honeys that are often more robust, like Bee America Pioneer Honey, work better in pies or yeast breads such as wheat or rye.

When adding in a liquid sweetener like honey, you need to compensate for the added moisture and remove liquid from other ingredients. A sound rule of thumb is to decrease the water or other liquid by ¼ cup for every cup of honey used. If your recipe calls for one cup of sugar, you need to use one cup of honey. And, keep in mind that for every cup of sugar used, increase the baking soda by ½ teaspoon to counteract the acidity of the honey and to help your baked goods to rise properly. The final tip to remember is that honey bakes faster than sugar so be sure to lower your oven temperature by 25 degrees to prevent overbrowning.